What is business, really?

Business is based on cooperation and voluntary exchange. People trade voluntarily for mutual gain. No one is forced to trade with a business. Customers have competitive alternatives in the marketplace, team members have competitive alternatives for their labour, investors have numerous alternatives to invest their capital, and suppliers have plenty of alternative customers for their products and services. Investors, labour, management, suppliers – they all need to cooperate to create value for customers. If they do, the joint value created is divided fairly among the creators of value through competitive market processes based approximately on the overall contribution each stakeholder makes. In other words, business is not a zero-sum game with a winner and a lower. It is a win, win, win, win game – I really like that. – John Mackey, 2014